Abu Dhabi: India’s GM Abhijeet Gupta regained lost ground in the Abu Dhabi Masters chess championship being held at the Sofitel Hotel here on Thursday.
Gupta got the better of International Master Haridas Pascua of the Philippines using King’s Indian Defense and now share a five-way tie for the lead with Sweden’s Nils Grandelius, Richard Rapport of Hungary and Ukrainians Martin Kravtsiv and Alexander Areschenko. Grandelius and Kravtsiv, however, had to dig deep and after a hard fought 67 moves the game ended up splitting points.
UAE’s Asian champion Salem A. R. Saleh, however, had a disappointing day and slipped down the ladder after he suffered his first loss against Areshenko in 45 moves. The result also dropped Salem to 15th spot with fours points.
India’s Suri Vaibhav had to resign to Hungarian Rapport in 40 moves after the latter used the Modern Benoni defense against him. The leaders are being closely followed by nine players with 4.5 points. Grandmasters Jobava Baadur of Georgia, Yuriy Kryvoruchko and Yuriy Kuzuybov of Ukraine, Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli of Venezuela, Kaido Kulaots of Estonia, Vladimir Akopian and Tigran Petrosian of Armenia, Darius Sqiercz of Poland and Peter Prohaszka of Hungary are in the chasing pack.
The Abu Dhabi Masters tournament is one of the strongest tournaments in the world with 45 grandmasters among whom 20 are rated over 2600. The Open tournament is for players rated 2000 and below while the Juniors tournament is for players under 16 years of age and played with a faster time control.
In the juniors, four Azerbaijan players are tied for the lead namely Farid Mustafayev, Rafili Said, Vugar Manafov and Rafail Manafov, in a field of 131 players. The action will resume on Saturday after Friday’s rest day.
